Debbie Sonu

Prof. Sonu holds an Ed.D. and MA degree from Teachers College, Columbia University, an MA from the Center X Teacher Education Program at the University of California, Los Angeles, as well as a BA from the University of California, Berkeley.

Teaching

Dr. Sonu teaches courses in both the Childhood and Adolescent Education Programs.

Social Studies Methods and Curriculum Development in Elementary Education (CEDC 722)

Research

Dr. Sonu's research interests include youth culture, curriculum studies, and issues related to institutional justice and moral practices in urban schools. She draws from postmodern frameworks in order to examine teacher and student meaning-making at the intersection of history education and social psychology and seeks to understand the educational implications of teacher thought in classroom practices and decision-making. Her dissertation, which explored youth performances and social justice education, received the 2011 Division B Outstanding Dissertation of the Year Award and the 2010 Critical Educators for Social Justice SIG Distinguished Dissertation of the Year Award from the American Educational Research Association (AERA).

Her recent work examines the conceptions of peace and violence among young children and how urban students understand indigenous populations, past and present. She was recently invited to contribute a chapter entitled the "Youth Cultural Milieu" in the forthcoming Guide to Curriculum in Education to be published by Sage.

Sonu, D. (forthcoming, 2013). For the Sake of Diplomacy: The Educational (im)Possibility of Teaching Peace by New York City Elementary School Teachers. In R. Naqvi & R. Smits (Eds.), Framing Peace: Thinking about and Enacting Curriculum as “Radical Hope” (pp. XX). New York: Peter Lang.

Sonu, D. (2013). Justice Work In and Out of Justice Itself. Special issue of Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, edited by Therese Quinn and Erica R. Meiners, 29(2).

Sonu, D. (2013). Friendship, Education, and Justice Teaching: The Professional Development of Two Teacher-Friends, Teaching and Learning: Journal of Natural Inquiry and Reflective Practice, 27(1), p. 19-34.